Classes & Workshops

Artistic Projects
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​SPRING 2017


​NEW!

​Poets, sign up now for the Surprise Valley Writers' Conference and work with Julia Connor and John Shoptaw. June 2 - 6

Link:  ModocForum.org Writers Conference

​Clay Workshop:

Clay, Color & Words is a hands-on exploration of creativity using methods developed from the work of M.C. Richards.
Scheduled for Spring 2017.  More information:  [email protected]
Non-fiction: Essays and talks on subjects ranging from the nature and writing of poetry to aesthetic perception in visual art.

Teaching and Mentoring: Three years on the MFA writing faculty at Naropa University as Assistant Director (1988-1991), after which I returned to Sacramento to offer poetry workshops and master classes. I have found that teaching “off-the-grid” suits me.

Workshops vary in length from weekends only to 6-8 week courses with weekly sessions. They occur in my home and/or at selected writer’s workshops & conferences where I have been invited to teach.

Click here for past workshops information.

Master Classes are generally six-months long with daylong meetings one time per month.

I work with poets at all levels of experience as well as on a one-on-one basis. All of my teaching involves serious study, hands-on writing exercises, resource sharing, and an attempt to expand boundaries -- self-inflicted as well as societally assumed.  Deep reading, discussion and revision of individual work are part of these classes, however critiques by myself and peer workshop participants are careful to acknowledge and respect the unique voice in which each individual writes.

Editing services can be arranged by request.

 
Literary Executor and Trustee:  Estate of poet, potter, educator Mary Caroline Richards (1916-1999). Ms. Richards’ Archive is located at The Getty Research Center, Los Angeles. A complete inventory of her remaining ceramic works for sale will be available at this website shortly. Enquiries regarding her life and work, commemorative events, copyright permission and purchase of her ceramic pieces should be directed to me. Copies of the recently published “Backpacking in the Hereafter” (posthumously edited by Julia Connor) containing Richards’ last poems are available from Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, Asheville, North Carolina.  

A beautiful color catalogue (122p.) celebrating the 2016 Centennial Exhibition of Richards' work in paint, print and clay, edited by Connor, contains essays covering the breadth of Richards oeuvre is also available on-line and in print from Black Mountain College Museum.


Shatterproof – creation of an hour long theatre piece written and performed by disenfranchised women at Women’s Wisdom Project, supported by an Artist-in Residence Award from the California Arts Council.


As Sacramento Poet Laureate (2005-2010), under the auspices of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission (SMAC), I devised and oversaw several projects designed to raise public awareness of poetry:

The Postcard Project— a citywide mail art project now housed at the Sacramento City Archives

Poets On Deck— a deck of playing cards with hand drawn portraits commemorating 52 local poets (and 2 jokers) active in and around the formative years of The Sacramento Poetry Center.  

Poet Laureate Park—a poetry-based destination site located on the grounds of South Natomas Library, featuring poetry texts by each Poet Laureate to date rendered in steel by sculptor Troy Coreless.  (Accomplished in collaboration with SMAC’s Public Arts In Public Places Program)